Experiencing an Awakening

QUESTION

            “When I was in my first few years studying as an undergraduate, I had recently broken up with my girlfriend and was searching for some answers about life.  I woke up very early one morning, a little before dawn, and decided that perhaps meditation would help me find some answers.  So I sat and tried to clear my mind of all thought.  Once all the thoughts and clutter in my mind had disappeared, I would then ask a question, and imagined that the question was like a seed that would grow into an answer.  I didn’t receive a ‘response’ in the traditional sense, but simply got up and felt compelled to page through one of the Bibles I had on my bookshelf.

            “I opened the Bible to a random page, and there I found the Parable of the Mustard Seed.  I read through it, not really knowing what it might mean.  I closed the Bible and tried again.  This time the passage was the Parable of the Wicked Vinedressers.  Once more, I opened the Bible and rested my eyes on a passage that discussed how ‘the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.’  I wasn’t a Christian at the time, nor a particularly religious person, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.

            “Again, I felt compelled to go out for a drive to think about things.  The passages kept replaying in my head, somewhat like a catchy pop song that you can’t help but listen to over and over again in your mind.  I wasn’t interpreting them, so much as memorizing them, over and over again.  After about an hour or so of driving, I found myself in a small town I hadn’t been in before and I saw the white cross of a little church and decided to stop by, more because I was sick of driving than anything else.  I’ve never felt particularly comfortable in a church, so it was a somewhat unusual thing for me to attend a service out of the blue.

            “Once I got there, I kept thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’  I didn’t know anyone, and it didn’t seem like the kind of congregation I would be comfortable in, but I sat and waited for something to happen.  After some singing and general announcements, the pastor turned on his projector to display some visual aids for his sermon.  Of course, the three passages he had picked out to assist his sermon were the three I had randomly turned to before I left.  I sat in the pew and tried to compute the odds of ending up at a random church that just happened to be using those passages for a sermon, and I determined that it was nearly impossible for this to be happening.

            “I leaned back in the pew and was overwhelmed by a sense of complete bliss.  I got the impression that what I was experiencing was something like God letting me know He/She/It existed.  I started to cry, and I remember the tears felt icy cold as they came over my cheeks.  What happened next is somewhat difficult to describe, and it is one of those things I wish I had not told anyone about because I know I cannot adequately describe it; however, since I’ve already told a number of people about it, I suppose I can tell it one more time.

            “As I sat back in the pew, and after I had started to cry, I became momentarily blind.  Everything turned into a kind of overexposure, a pure kind of whiteness.  I could still hear everything that was being said, but I was truly blind for a moment.  Then I lost what I would call my ‘normal’ consciousness.  The only way I can describe it is being everything in the entire universe all at once, but being nothing at all at the same time.  All the paradoxes about life, things like life/death, or good/bad, and everything that I doubted or did not understand about the world became perfectly clear, but I also knew that the wisdom I had would only last as long as I was in that state.  Once I went back to my normal self, I knew that I would be unable to describe it in a way that anyone would really understand.  I’m not sure how long I was in this state, but when I finally came back into myself, something wasn’t quite the same.

            “I was still a little dazed at that point, but one thing I noticed was that I could feel everything and everyone in the room.  It should have been overwhelming, but in a strange way, it felt normal to me, like I was just seeing things in a different way or from a greater perspective.  I had similar experiences the entire day.  When I returned to campus, I could hear conversations that should have been impossible for me to hear.  I felt the emotions of other people, of the animals in my environment, even the pilot flying a fighter jet overhead.  As the day ran its course, I eventually felt myself retreating farther and farther into myself until I returned to my everyday, normal self by the end of the day.

            “That is the basic gist of my experience.  I’m not sure this would count as a ‘near-death’ experience, but I suppose I would label it more of a spiritual experience, and I’m still working through what it means to me.”…..Matthew

ANSWER

            What you went through, Matthew, is commonly referred to as “an awakening.”  Awakenings are where all senses heighten and expand, your state of consciousness accelerates to a higher degree, and you suddenly know things, feel things, see things, hear things – beyond the normal range.  I would not call it a near-death experience, but, rather, the beginnings of a threshold experience.  Again, the idea of an awakening:  suddenly accessing more of the electromagnetic spectrum, suddenly expanding into realities you did not think existed, suddenly “not self” but more than self.

            The spiritual/religious worlds of thought and sense are quite real.  Once accessed, they change us – on all levels, even physically.  It might behoove you to follow this new path and see where it leads you.  Seldom does an adherent realize or recognize the onset of spiritual energies and spiritual shift.  Yet these happen “on time” – when you’re ready, you shift.  You did.  And the opportunity to shift again will occur.  Count on it.  By the way, synchronicity is one of the signs of making such a shift in consciousness.

            Awakenings are just that, an opportunity to think and to exist on another wavelength.  Take advantage of the door that has opened for you.  Awakenings strengthen us and give us courage – the courage to grow.

            Many thanks, PMH

The Threshold Experience and Why We Are Here

QUESTION

"Thank you for this blog and for all the wisdom you share with the world! From reading a lot about NDE's and reincarnation in the past months, it seems to me that life on Earth could be compared to plunging into a very very real video game. And we do it because we want to learn and want the challenge. Earth is real and part of God's creation, but it is not the ultimate, timeless reality. We need to forget because otherwise it would not be a challenge, nor would it be fun.

"Is this analogy correct in your view? Or am I way off base?

"Also, why would the NDE of a newborn have an impact in her life if she had just come from the other side? Is it because it can be remembered and integrated into consciousness AFTER the veil of amnesia? I would appreciate your opinion."....Diana

ANSWER

You ask interesting questions. Why are we here? It is clear to me after decades of research, life experiences, and sharings from thousands of people, young and old, that the curriculum ascribed "over there" is worked on and developed "over here."

Once we pass to the "Other Worlds," or somehow visit there on purpose or by accident, we learn or are shown "the big picture." Many are told why they were born and what they are to do here. Others are shown the grand sweep of creation, its purpose in a Grander Plan and the whys to all their questions. Since a child I have known that the answers to all my questions exist in this "elsewhere place." But getting there, much less understanding what I found when I did get there, presented a puzzle. I'd slip through the "portals" (specific shifts in energy frequency) from time to time, but never stayed long enough to make the kind of difference I wanted to see happen. When you die yet come back (a near-death experience), mostly you are able to visit or glimpse the Other Worlds, or are met by a Visitor or have a vivid Out-of-Body Experience - that show you moe of this world and more of you and more of existence and more of the Other Side and more of God and more, more, more. The majority return aglow, stunned, shocked, happy, at peace - all at the same time - because experiencing this for yourself physically and on all levels of being, not only gets your attention, it demands your attention. All is known. There really are no secrets. But, in taking on a body, most of us lose the ability to reconnect to where we once were and how we once existed and why.

We forget or the memory is taken from us, or, somehow in the process of taking on physicality, the process itself "dumbs down things of spirit." I can't call any of this wrong or even regretful. The process is not some kind of "boo-hoo." The simple fact is, we could never accomplish much or form good muscles and bone structure - strength, if you will - if we remembered all the answers to existence before we encountered the questions. We cannot be a co-creator with The Creator (which I believe is our purpose) until we have lived through, tested, and understood what that means and what it entails. Life is no fairy story. It is grit, guts, and blood until we awaken to Truth. The entire New Thought Movement, begun in the 1800's, was based on this principle: we have the ability and the right to know and develop the art of healing and of direct contact with God. We are divinity in action. As a near-death experiencer, you go through a lot of integrating into your life what happened to you and what that means to you. Although many toss of these experiences as "light shows," they are far more than that. Check out my book Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story for a taste of what I am referring to.

Reincarnation? Not all experiencers accept that theory or resonate to it, although some do. I tend to believe that something like that is true, but just how it works is beyond me. I used to think I had a pretty good handle on the subject, as, way back when, I worked part-time as a hypnotherapist specializing in past-life regressions. I've seen enough to know (and remember a good deal more myself) that what seems to be reincarnation is indeed real. . . but is it really life after life, tit for tat, exactly as it seems? No, I don't think so. There is a whole range of what the soul can do and - surprise - it is our soul that is in charge. And, the soul has a mind of its own. Don't mistake personality for soul. The two are not the same. I talk about this in many of my books, especially We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death and Future Memory. To understand multiple lives you need to get a better handle on what is meant by soul.

Why would the impact of a near-death experience have an effect on a newborn later in the child's life? This would take a book unto itself to even explore. What I would invite you to consider is that the baby is just about to or is involved in entering the earthplane. This is the shutting down process of spirit acclimating to physicality. That actually takes a while - up to around 5 years or so - usually until the child goes to school. The younger the child the more apt he or she is to "remember." And. . . the more apt he or she is to "bond" to the Other Side rather than this one. Yup, I have a whole book about that too. It is The New Children and Near-Death Experiences. You see, I don't just research topics. I like to get right down to ground level where they are happening and with who they are happening to. I'm an observer, not an academic. Child experiencers, as they grow up, can go through real challenges at home and at school, and later on in forming relationships. Some are so guided they "breeze" through, making wise choices about life and choice of career. Others stumble all the way, until they discover what is normal and typical for a child experiencer. Then it's like a big "aha," and years of confusion evaporates. Most of the Catholic Saints had a near-death experience as a child. Most of the spiritual and religious leaders we so admire had a near-death experience as a child. You can trace back in history stories of our greatest giants in science, music, literature, and the humanities - same thing happens - you discover evidence to suggest that that individual had a near-death experience as a child. The brain of such a child is directly affected in remarkable ways by their episode. Many grow up thinking they are now "psychic," when, in fact, they have become more of what they once were. They are, in their own way, geniuses.

The more you read and study the near-death phenomenon and especially what it might mean as a "threshold experience," the more things begin to make sense. Many blessings, PMH